Honest question for you guys, besides for Jund being more fun, or being more familiar with this archetype, or budget constraints---what is the real reason playing GBx over UW Control? Not trolling, I'm looking for honest opinions and perspective since I've been on hiatus.
As this decision might not be that easy, here is what is implied by them:
When you cut the Twilight Mire and add a 9th fetchland, your manabase is as consistant as it gets. You have your 18 red sources and you will have the least awkward opening hands with this manabase. However, this manabase is more painful than the other options, as you often have to fetch + shock to get red, and you also have no twilight mire to get painfree double green or double black. Against aggro this matter.
When you cut the second forest and add a mountain, your manabase is as painfree as possible (in the realm of being consistant at least) which means you can have red with only 1 point of life fetches, you can have your twilight mire to get painfree double green and double black and that is very good agaisnt aggro. However, Mountain and Twilight Mire make your opening hands worse, as you will more often have to mulligan any hands with a Ravine and one of those lands in hand. Its a lower consistancy overall.
You could also just leave your manabase as is. This is the "middle way" to say, as you dont have your mountain for awkward opening hands, but still have the twilight mire. So its a balance of painfree and consistancy, however, the consistancy is worse concerning the red mana, because like already mentioned you have only 17 red sources this way.
Another option is to play a mountain as well as no twilight mire, 9 fetchlands. Being able to fetch for red for 1 mana also helps to prevent lifeloss and you have only mountain that way to have in awkward opening hands.
I think there's a 5th option that doesn't get enough consideration. Anger mana is typicaly something you only need in the sideboard, and an opponents interaction with you in a match where you want Anger is going to be different than in game 1's or in non Anger games. What you could consider is putting a fetchable red land in your sideboard (probably Mountain to conserve life?), and sideboarding it in over a different land (Treetop perhaps?), in the games you want Anger.
Which means, in the past he was fine with 90 % consistancy for every card. However, I think it is absolutely right to have a gradient in consistancy increasing upon increasing mana cost. Which means the higher the manacost, the more consistancy should be aimed for.
I think this is backwards. The earlier you play a card, the more consistent you need it to be. If a game goes long, you can often afford a turn or two for something bigger to come online. But if you stumble early you won't recover. Also, it gets easier in most situations to make a later card more consistent, so by aiming for a consistent early game, you will usually cover later game consistency without having to try.
@Spsiegel: I agree with Modern being faster and most (top) decks being more consistant which makes less painful mana base more important than ever. You're right about 8 fetchlands being enough for that reason (less painful manabase and still consistent enough). With this in minds and the fact that you like Twillight Mire, do you think that adding Twilight mire instead of 2nd Wooded Foothills (I'm talking about my list I posted above) would be good idea?
Concerning GBx vs UW Control I have to say that I'm not really sure. One reason could be that Jund and other GBx decks are better against combo decks (except for KCI) so if you expect to see more of these then GBx decks are better choice. I personally believe that GBx decks have better mu against Spirits which tends to be favored against UW Control while GBx decks are at least 50:50 against them (based on my experiences). Talking about Jund it has at least as good mu if not better against Humans because of Meddling Mage who can shut down Terminus (I think Jeskai control for example is much better against Humans than UW Control). Furthermore Burn is pretty tough mu for UW Control while at least GB Rock has a good mu against it (at least as long as you play MD Collective Brutality and some additional life gain in sb).
One thing to note here is that I think (this is only my opinion though so take this with a grain of salt) I think Jund (not sure about other GBx decks) is better than UW Control against Dredge or less bad if you want so. This is because Jund has MD gy hate in the form of Scavenging Ooze which might steal game 1 occasionally (not very likely but it's possible, I've already managed to do it). UW Control doesn't except for Path to Exile which can act like that to some extent. Another thing is that Anger of the Gods is better than Terminus because it gets rid of creatures forever. Terminus on the other hand only puts them on the bottom which is better than putting them in the gy but still not the best. This leaves up opportunity for Dredge player to get them back-they can play around Terminus (a bit) if they leave uncracked fetchland and crack it after Terminus to shuffle creature that were put on the bottom of the library. Then they can Dredge or discard them again. In black colors you also have access to Kalitas. It's not big difference though but (in my opinion) it is and Dredge is a reason (in my opinion again) as of why UW Control slightly dropped in numbers after Dredge started to put up bigger numbers again.
Concerning the question about replacing the 9th fetch for a twilight, you are running some double red spells in the sideboard and the 9th fetch gives you 18 red sources which is quite nice
I've been playing Jund for years, and I think last year was when we stopped playing Twilight Mire, correct? Honestly, I think Twilight Mire has always been a fantastic land. I never really thought that 9th fetchland was that necessary. I'm trying to remember why we as the Jund community moved to that 9th fetchland, it may have been because of some combination with Shadow decks slowing the format down and us playing Goblin Rabblemaster.
Unless you plan to jam two of those Dampening Spheres in the side, I really think Twilight Mire is superior. You can also take into consideration how much better scooze is thanks to that land in the early parts of a game. I really don't think that mountain/foothill is that great. On top of it we cut terminate and now play 3x Trophy.
We also like to play those Ravines or cliffs first, which I think is sufficient usually. Against a deck like dredge you were probably already in huge trouble if that extra damage was the difference. And against aggro decks, casting that anger wasn't much different than three years ago with the mana base I'm suggesting.
I think if Jund had maybe a new 4x of red card I'd consider the twilight mire being switched out with the 2nd wooded foothills.
As for your Chandra, that's for slower matchups were you shouldn't be dying for that second red source unless UW is blowing your lands up.
On the subject of manlands, has anyone ever considered playing a singleton lavaclaw reaches? I know it's probably the weakest of the original zendikar manlands, but it is still *a* manland. And as a mana producer it's in the right color combo to cast anger and LotV.
Jut to be clear, the motivation is that while ravine and treetop are better manlands, they’re in probably the worst color combo as far as lands go. So you can sacrifice the power level of one manland for slightly better mana. Reasonable, or going too deep?
A couple of comments at previous posts; forgive me being to lazy to mention handles. I'm beat.
Having a Mountain in my side-board would start me out in feelz-bad mode. I get there often enough as is, I don't want to start there by cutting my side-board down to fourteen spells. Maybe it's just personal taste.
The extra fetchland could be an artifact of the initial euphoria around Fatal Push. Dunno. Strangely, Twilight Mire seems to have lost popularity even in Rock. Personally, I'm presently on Ghost Quarter-Rock so there's no place for Mire, but I had three back when Rex was in the House.
Hi Jund community, I am new to Jund and just finished build the deck yesterday and has been followed the discussion in this forum for past a week. I was in dilemma of building 24 or 25 lands. FOr now I go for 25 lands first and see how it goes. My Black source 18, Red Source 18, Green Source 17. Does Twilight mire consider Black / Green source?
There is a few play that tested my playing skill, so I share her and lets see what is your decision on this. So this is the beginning 7 cards in hand, and I am on the play.
Bloodstained Mire, Bloodstained Mire, Twilight Mire, Dark Confidant, Thoughtseize, Bloodbraid Elf, Liliana of the veil
Opponent was a mirror match.
1. Turn 1 go for fetch a basic swamp, cast thoughtseize down to 17 life. Turn 2 twilight mire into bob, Turn 3 put a fetchland and say go or cast LoTV.
2. Turn 1 put a fetchland and say go. Fetch it end of opponent turn. Turn 2 twilight mire and cast Thoughtseize / bob.
I know that turn 1 discard play is very crucial for information and take the best card or their inquisition / thoughtseize. However, It would be painful to take damage at first since I need to fetch for blood crypt, and take the risk of casting turn 2 bob.
Just want to know what is you guys best play on this.
Always cast your discard turn 1 in the dark. If it's a small LG store and you scouted their deck you can change plans from there.
If you have something incredibly valuable in your hand, cast that discard.
Your turn 1 play could have been to play a swamp, seeing as you have two other lands to provide color fixing.
So, I'd probably do turn 1 swamp, thoughtseize. See the mirror, play twilight mire turn 2, Bob. Wait a turn and see what I draw. If I curve perfectly that early it may not matter what I shocked myself with.
I think there's a 5th option that doesn't get enough consideration. Anger mana is typicaly something you only need in the sideboard, and an opponents interaction with you in a match where you want Anger is going to be different than in game 1's or in non Anger games. What you could consider is putting a fetchable red land in your sideboard (probably Mountain to conserve life?), and sideboarding it in over a different land (Treetop perhaps?), in the games you want Anger.
I think this is backwards. The earlier you play a card, the more consistent you need it to be. If a game goes long, you can often afford a turn or two for something bigger to come online. But if you stumble early you won't recover. Also, it gets easier in most situations to make a later card more consistent, so by aiming for a consistent early game, you will usually cover later game consistency without having to try.
I don't think we can afford loosing a SB slot for a land, SB slots are way to precious.
On the math, actually the math works that way for our spells when going from CMC 1 to 3. The highest requirements from our spells are needed from Liliana, Finks and Anger. Turn 1 interaction is covered by miles through this. Read Franks article on this, he also suggests a gradient for the higher CMC spells:
Hi Jund community, I am new to Jund and just finished build the deck yesterday and has been followed the discussion in this forum for past a week. I was in dilemma of building 24 or 25 lands. FOr now I go for 25 lands first and see how it goes. My Black source 18, Red Source 18, Green Source 17. Does Twilight mire consider Black / Green source?
There is a few play that tested my playing skill, so I share her and lets see what is your decision on this. So this is the beginning 7 cards in hand, and I am on the play.
Bloodstained Mire, Bloodstained Mire, Twilight Mire, Dark Confidant, Thoughtseize, Bloodbraid Elf, Liliana of the veil
Opponent was a mirror match.
1. Turn 1 go for fetch a basic swamp, cast thoughtseize down to 17 life. Turn 2 twilight mire into bob, Turn 3 put a fetchland and say go or cast LoTV.
2. Turn 1 put a fetchland and say go. Fetch it end of opponent turn. Turn 2 twilight mire and cast Thoughtseize / bob.
I know that turn 1 discard play is very crucial for information and take the best card or their inquisition / thoughtseize. However, It would be painful to take damage at first since I need to fetch for blood crypt, and take the risk of casting turn 2 bob.
Just want to know what is you guys best play on this.
Your list is perfect pretty much, nothing to add here. Also welcome to the Jund forums!
turn 1 you always want to cast a discard spell, this is surely the better play. You want to use your mana tightly, and missing on casting a spell is really bad. You want to deploy turn 2 Bob and turn 3 LoTV, where the TS only fits in on turn 1. This si actually a really nice curve for starters.
Was jamming a few games against my buddy's UW Spirits today, and it felt pretty rough. Mausoleum Wanderer + Selfless Spirit + Queller is quite a tax on removal and he was able to outpace my board control. Especially on the draw, I felt pretty unfavoured there.
I really like IOK against them. You really don't want to skimp on the cheap spells which makes SPell Queller too strong otherwise. You need to get your curve low in order to beat them. And then safe life whereever possible.
So why aren't we on the risk factor train? Card seems nuts
Risk Factor has its applications - and it is indeed strong. It doesn't belong in a deck that doesn't support it and the reasons mentioned in this thread are valid.
However, I am of a mind that Liliana of the Veil is not that strong in the current meta - and its for this reason I've taken the time to re-imagine Jund in a more aggressive shell where Green and Red are primary colors with black as the tertiary or splash color, strictly for Assassin's Trophy and Kolaghan's Command.
It is definitely different in the way it is constructed and how it plays. It probably should have a thread of its own in deck creation. However, if any of you are interested in seeing just what this concept is about - I can promise you that it definitely has legs and just needs further tweaking and input from players interested in going outside of the box a bit.
I don't think we can afford loosing a SB slot for a land, SB slots are way to precious.
You're not losing the SB slot though. Putting spells in your sideboard is certainly important, but you've got 24 lands in the deck. Having the ability to sideboard your manabase into a less damaging configuration in certain matchups (even without the spell) is a very reasonable thing to do. It's also something that will more than likely come up, because it becomes relevant with any fetchland rather than just if you draw the card. So a sideboard land can be a good strategy.
G3, Jadine Klomparens v Caleb Scherer demonstrates why I shy away from 25 land builds...
I am assuming she flooded out?
However, the difference in flooding out between 24 and 25 lands is not that high. Its only about 3 % difference. So you cant take that as happening all the time.
Last I'll speak of it here because I don't want to be a distraction to the core deck dialogue here - but here is the link in the Deck Creation subforum to my Violent Jund list.
Its definitely more aggro then midrange, but it has a impressive "mid-rangey" grinding ability that few aggro decks can duplicate as well as access to nearly all of the tools that Jund enjoys. Take a look if you're interested:
G3, Jadine Klomparens v Caleb Scherer demonstrates why I shy away from 25 land builds...
There is very little difference between 24 and 25. I posted some results a few months ago (if you're curious, dig through my post history and find them). You're almost as likely to flood out on 24 as on 25.
Winning small tournament in my LGS, defeat: Burn, mono White hate bears, mono red agroo and Boros prision deck, i feel realy good to my list and smashed various games, i feel jund strong again.
One obb: against mono White he atack my lands, red sources, and i running 2 forest and 2 swammp that match make me really consider put one Mountain, in case i add Mountain against forest or other land, twilgt mire, one fetch?
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern:
Mardu Pyromancer
Grixis Shadow
Traverse Shadow
Jund
Abzan
The Rock
Winning small tournament in my LGS, defeat: Burn, mono White hate bears, mono red agroo and Boros prision deck, i feel realy good to my list and smashed various games, i feel jund strong again.
One obb: against mono White he atack my lands, red sources, and i running 2 forest and 2 swammp that match make me really consider put one Mountain, in case i add Mountain against forest or other land, twilgt mire, one fetch?
If you want to run the mountain, always cut the second forest for it. Congratz on your result!
I think there's a 5th option that doesn't get enough consideration. Anger mana is typicaly something you only need in the sideboard, and an opponents interaction with you in a match where you want Anger is going to be different than in game 1's or in non Anger games. What you could consider is putting a fetchable red land in your sideboard (probably Mountain to conserve life?), and sideboarding it in over a different land (Treetop perhaps?), in the games you want Anger.
I think this is backwards. The earlier you play a card, the more consistent you need it to be. If a game goes long, you can often afford a turn or two for something bigger to come online. But if you stumble early you won't recover. Also, it gets easier in most situations to make a later card more consistent, so by aiming for a consistent early game, you will usually cover later game consistency without having to try.
Concerning the question about replacing the 9th fetch for a twilight, you are running some double red spells in the sideboard and the 9th fetch gives you 18 red sources which is quite nice
Unless you plan to jam two of those Dampening Spheres in the side, I really think Twilight Mire is superior. You can also take into consideration how much better scooze is thanks to that land in the early parts of a game. I really don't think that mountain/foothill is that great. On top of it we cut terminate and now play 3x Trophy.
We also like to play those Ravines or cliffs first, which I think is sufficient usually. Against a deck like dredge you were probably already in huge trouble if that extra damage was the difference. And against aggro decks, casting that anger wasn't much different than three years ago with the mana base I'm suggesting.
I think if Jund had maybe a new 4x of red card I'd consider the twilight mire being switched out with the 2nd wooded foothills.
As for your Chandra, that's for slower matchups were you shouldn't be dying for that second red source unless UW is blowing your lands up.
Jut to be clear, the motivation is that while ravine and treetop are better manlands, they’re in probably the worst color combo as far as lands go. So you can sacrifice the power level of one manland for slightly better mana. Reasonable, or going too deep?
UMerfolkGBW
Melira PodRIPGBW Abzan Midrange
GBR Jund Midrange
EDH
GBR Prossh
Having a Mountain in my side-board would start me out in feelz-bad mode. I get there often enough as is, I don't want to start there by cutting my side-board down to fourteen spells. Maybe it's just personal taste.
The extra fetchland could be an artifact of the initial euphoria around Fatal Push. Dunno. Strangely, Twilight Mire seems to have lost popularity even in Rock. Personally, I'm presently on Ghost Quarter-Rock so there's no place for Mire, but I had three back when Rex was in the House.
Frenzy-Affinity-Ghost Quarter-Rock-Tokens- RGWPhyrexian Zoo- WVial KnightsStandard:
BW Knights(Rotated)Pioneer: RW Knights - BW Rally Zombies - UW Heroes
Commander:WUG
Jenara, Asura of War- WGSigarda, Host of HeronsCasualties of economicsLegacy: Good-night, sweet prince. Mono-R Burn
Currently my list is as per below.
4x Blackcleave Cliffs
1x Blood Crypt
4x Bloodstained Mire
1x Forest
2x Overgrown Tomb
3x Raging Ravine
1x Stomping Ground
2x Swamp
1x Treetop Village
1x Twilight Mire
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Wooded Foothills
3x Assassin's Trophy
1x Fatal Push
2x Kolaghan's Command
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Bloodbraid Elf
3x Dark Confidant
3x Scavenging Ooze
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Thoughtseize
Planeswalker (5)
4x Liliana of the Veil
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
2x Anger of the Gods
2x Collective Brutality
1x Engineered Explosives
3x Fulminator Mage
1x Grim Lavamancer
1x Maelstrom Pulse
2x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Tireless Tracker
There is a few play that tested my playing skill, so I share her and lets see what is your decision on this. So this is the beginning 7 cards in hand, and I am on the play.
Bloodstained Mire, Bloodstained Mire, Twilight Mire, Dark Confidant, Thoughtseize, Bloodbraid Elf, Liliana of the veil
Opponent was a mirror match.
1. Turn 1 go for fetch a basic swamp, cast thoughtseize down to 17 life. Turn 2 twilight mire into bob, Turn 3 put a fetchland and say go or cast LoTV.
2. Turn 1 put a fetchland and say go. Fetch it end of opponent turn. Turn 2 twilight mire and cast Thoughtseize / bob.
I know that turn 1 discard play is very crucial for information and take the best card or their inquisition / thoughtseize. However, It would be painful to take damage at first since I need to fetch for blood crypt, and take the risk of casting turn 2 bob.
Just want to know what is you guys best play on this.
If you have something incredibly valuable in your hand, cast that discard.
Your turn 1 play could have been to play a swamp, seeing as you have two other lands to provide color fixing.
So, I'd probably do turn 1 swamp, thoughtseize. See the mirror, play twilight mire turn 2, Bob. Wait a turn and see what I draw. If I curve perfectly that early it may not matter what I shocked myself with.
I don't think we can afford loosing a SB slot for a land, SB slots are way to precious.
On the math, actually the math works that way for our spells when going from CMC 1 to 3. The highest requirements from our spells are needed from Liliana, Finks and Anger. Turn 1 interaction is covered by miles through this. Read Franks article on this, he also suggests a gradient for the higher CMC spells:
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/how-many-colored-mana-sources-do-you-need-to-consistently-cast-your-spells-a-guilds-of-ravnica-update/
Thats what I am focusing on.
Your list is perfect pretty much, nothing to add here. Also welcome to the Jund forums!
turn 1 you always want to cast a discard spell, this is surely the better play. You want to use your mana tightly, and missing on casting a spell is really bad. You want to deploy turn 2 Bob and turn 3 LoTV, where the TS only fits in on turn 1. This si actually a really nice curve for starters.
Risk Factor has its applications - and it is indeed strong. It doesn't belong in a deck that doesn't support it and the reasons mentioned in this thread are valid.
However, I am of a mind that Liliana of the Veil is not that strong in the current meta - and its for this reason I've taken the time to re-imagine Jund in a more aggressive shell where Green and Red are primary colors with black as the tertiary or splash color, strictly for Assassin's Trophy and Kolaghan's Command.
My list is something I'm calling "Violent Jund" (It can be found here https://deckstats.net/decks/97508/1120053-violent-jund-aggro-traverse-bu )
It is definitely different in the way it is constructed and how it plays. It probably should have a thread of its own in deck creation. However, if any of you are interested in seeing just what this concept is about - I can promise you that it definitely has legs and just needs further tweaking and input from players interested in going outside of the box a bit.
I'll be creating that thread soon.
You're not losing the SB slot though. Putting spells in your sideboard is certainly important, but you've got 24 lands in the deck. Having the ability to sideboard your manabase into a less damaging configuration in certain matchups (even without the spell) is a very reasonable thing to do. It's also something that will more than likely come up, because it becomes relevant with any fetchland rather than just if you draw the card. So a sideboard land can be a good strategy.
I am assuming she flooded out?
However, the difference in flooding out between 24 and 25 lands is not that high. Its only about 3 % difference. So you cant take that as happening all the time.
It all depends on the mana curve you are running.
Its definitely more aggro then midrange, but it has a impressive "mid-rangey" grinding ability that few aggro decks can duplicate as well as access to nearly all of the tools that Jund enjoys. Take a look if you're interested:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/800630-violent-jund-grb-aggressive-traverse-jund
There is very little difference between 24 and 25. I posted some results a few months ago (if you're curious, dig through my post history and find them). You're almost as likely to flood out on 24 as on 25.
One obb: against mono White he atack my lands, red sources, and i running 2 forest and 2 swammp that match make me really consider put one Mountain, in case i add Mountain against forest or other land, twilgt mire, one fetch?
Mardu Pyromancer
Grixis Shadow
Traverse Shadow
Jund
Abzan
The Rock
If you want to run the mountain, always cut the second forest for it. Congratz on your result!